By Helen Louise
My favourite time of the week growing up was huddling round the TV with my friends and watching WWF. It was then, as it is now, exciting as hell! As kids it never once occurred to us that the don’t try this at home warning was relevant. We DDT’d, clothes lined and power bombed each other into oblivion. Not much has changed on that front over the past 20 years. As I’m sure other WWE fans can appreciate many a drunken night out ends up with thinking that you are Hulk Hogan or Stone Cold and though getting on a bit, still capable of busting a move or two on your unsuspecting inebriated friend! The past 20 years in the WWE have however are far from unchanging.
I grew up watching the likes of The Undertaker, Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Degeneration X, HBK, Triple H and too many others to mention. These guys were my favourites! I have watched recently many an epic match that has reminded me just how great WWF used to be! It was BRUTAL, cliché, tongue in cheek and entertaining beyond belief! It always strikes me how times change so quickly. It would be unheard of now to do half of the things that used tooccur on a regular basis. Beer, boobs, innuendo galore and just general brutality! It was GREAT! Would I let my young son watch it? Hell no! As I’m old enough to say it now… Back in the day, we had drink driving, porn stars, illegal weddings, supermarket bashings, relentless chair shots to the head, Mick Foley, live snakes, beer showers and milk trucks.
Now we have the PG era… Not so PG, just not as much attitude! As the attitude era faded out I, as every other fan over a certain age clung on to the remnants. Seeing Edge and Shawn Michaels retire was almost certainly the end of an erafor me. These two men stole the show on so many occasions. And they did it with attitude! Triple H popping up from time to time still excites me, but now his priorities have changed we are lucky to see him do anything much more than loosen his tie other than at Wrestlemania. Jericho makes me happy, the ultimate bad guy! He is a veteran and always manages to whip the crowd into a frenzy. He pushes the boundaries of PG and I love it! We were spoilt. WWE will never give us the thrill and excitement WWF did. That said, there are some great Superstars and some great characters out there at the moment. Attitude era it is not but as fans we have a great deal to look forward to…
Follow Helen on Twitter @HelenRobinson82 and leave your thoughts below.
Yeah, I still remember how I would always get up every saturday morning as a kid to watch the WWF recap shows. 1st it was cartoons then Wrestling. Yep, it was an awesome time to be a kid! 🙂
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Wrestling and then Air Wolf. Saturday’s were the best!
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Don’t forget Muppet Babies!
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I remember watching Earthquake’s debut on the old Superstars with my friends. Good times!
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Me and my brothers use to wrestle all the time when we were younger. I actually broke my finger botching a frog splash. So you really shouldn’t try it at home, lol.
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Did you get the pin? lol
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Sadly no, lol.
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😦
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Me and my friends used to wrestle every time before raw. We even had a federation and there was a heavyweight title, inter-town title and a tag-team title… Between the 3 of us! Before raw we’d put on a show to ourselves, until one night shit got real
My mate was busted open hardway after I hit him over the head with a tray. Me hospitalised with 2 broken ribs, fluid on the lung and a collapsed lung,.. 2 operations, 3 weeks in hospital and 6 months off school just before my GCSE’s… Good times!
(I have a draft done up which I may complete and forward to ray so you can all learn that wrestling IS real!)
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That’s pretty extreme. You deserve an ECW chant, lol.
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Around here, I was one of very few who watched WWF or WCW. It was a lot different looking at it back then when you knew nothing about the way wrestling works etc.. you got excited much easier than now like.
I wish they build characters now like they did back then. I guess that’s why we enjoyed it more back then.
Great write up and welcome to WR 😀
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No, we were young and didn’t think about booking. We just wanted to see some shit go down.
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True, true.
Innocence of a kid was a much simpler time by not analysing wrestling! lol
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Once again, change in fans>change in booking.
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Lovely debut article here on WR,Helen, looking forward to more of your work.
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Nice work Helen! The great memories are what keeps me around waiting for more.
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Thanks for all the great feedback guys 🙂
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No problem. It’s nice to see another point of view…so I can make fun of it!!!(kidding) 🙂
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Good article Helen. Everyone loves the attitude era but I think te last 10 months or so have been excellent too.
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